How High is Too High? Lochwood Residents Continue to Fight Ojala’s Plans For a Four-Story Building

Residents of the Lochwood neighborhood mobilized earlier this year to oppose a rezoning at Shoreline City Church that would pave the way for a high-rise apartment complex on Garland Road. As the proposal gets closer to a vote before the Dallas Plan Commission, the neighborhood opposition is gaining momentum. 

The site currently is zoned R7.5(A) single-family residential, which allows churches, among other things. Shoreline City Church is relocating and selling the property to developers with Ojala Holdings. The developer is requesting the site be rezoned to multi-family use and is pursuing a contract for 51 percent affordable housing to be rented to households that earn 80 percent of the Area Median Family Income.  

The proposal could go before the city’s Plan Commission in August. 

Thomas Buck oversees communications for the Lochwood Neighborhood Association and recently organized a balloon viewing on the Shoreline Church lot to display a three-dimensional view of what an object looks like on the complex site line at 60 feet tall — simulating what it would look like for neighbors who live adjacent to a multifamily housing complex at that height. The wind didn’t cooperate, and the balloon experiment was a bust, but that didn’t stop area residents from voicing their opinions. 

They’re planning to reschedule the balloon test prior to the rezoning hearing. 

“Lochwood — and especially Yorkmont Circle — neighbors are very concerned,” Buck said. “It’s safe to say the city is wanting to provide affordable housing. The question remains, how big, literally and figuratively, of a sacrifice are they wanting us to make to achieve it? The issue isn’t about whether or not affordable housing is necessary because of course it is. The issue is how affordable housing should be implemented, especially with developments next to neighborhoods.”

Developers with Ojala Holdings have said they’ve heard the concerns and incorporated them into their proposal — but the compromises have not appeased many residents of Lochwood and the surrounding area. 

Land use and real estate attorney Michael Jung, who represents District 9 on the city’s Plan Commission, and District 9 City Councilwoman Paula Blackmon also have taken an interest in the matter and are expected to vote on it with their respective panels in the coming weeks. 

“What I’m looking at is whether the proposed use is compatible with this location,” Jung said. “The big issue is the height. They’re proposing four stories. Many people in the neighborhood don’t want it to be there at all, but if it’s going to be there, they want it to be three stories. The developer is doing some things to mitigate the impacts of a four-story building. The question, in this case, is, are those things enough?”

Jung has served on the Plan Commission for almost a decade in non-consecutive terms and has never lost a rezoning vote in the district he represents. 

He won’t say how he’s voting and said he’s not likely to make that decision until the public hearing. 

Ojala Holdings 

Dallas-based Ojala Holdings is “an opportunistic real estate firm dedicated to generating asymmetric returns for family office and high net worth investors through the identification and execution of overlooked niche opportunities,” according to its website. 

Vice President Daniel Smith, who has attended Lochwood neighborhood meetings and was present at the attempted balloon experiment, said the project has evolved based on resident feedback.

“The project originally was designed as a four-story, surface-parked, multi-family community, and after working with the Lochwood community and Garland Road Vision Task Force, the development has been redesigned to include a mix of uses including creative office space, a public art plaza, simple greenspace, and enhanced privacy buffers to protect the adjacent neighbors,” Smith said. 

As a result of the extensive neighborhood input, Ojala has “completely redesigned the project,” the developer emphasized. That includes a reduction in height from 66 feet to 60 feet, a reduction in density to 300 units, and a building footprint about 20 percent smaller than originally proposed. 

“After recording drone footage from the perspective of a resident standing on a fourth-floor balcony, we have come up with a strategic visual buffer to protect the residents of Lochwood from any aerial privacy intrusion including 18 two-story townhomes, a 15-foot enhanced landscape buffer with a minimum of nine 6-inch caliper trees and 26 smaller trees, and a 9-foot privacy fence,” Smith said. 

The project is designated 49 percent market-rate units, with 51 percent of the units to be leased to working Attainable Housing residents, the developer added. 

“The city of Dallas is facing a severe housing crisis,” Smith said. “Single-family home values have increased 20 percent over the last year and multi-family communities are at a record occupancy of 97.4 percent with rental rates increasing 18 percent over the last 12 months. We believe that both higher earners, as well as working-class folks, deserve the opportunity to live in Class A housing in a good area with access to public transit and neighborhood amenities.” 

Neighborhood Perspective 

Lochwood residents and Shoreline City Church members Sher and Ray LaDieu oppose the Ojala proposal.

“There’s far too much of a negative impact on our neighborhood,” Sher LaDieu said.

Her husband Ray said the 60-foot height is unacceptable. If the development is approved, they’ll have to find a new place to worship, in addition to being uncomfortable in their own neighborhood. 

“It’s 100 percent a money deal, which means it’s 100 percent not a God deal,” Ray LeDieu said. “A four-story development is unheard of [in this type of neighborhood]. We’re on a rise and we’re graded up higher. They’re only concerned about the number of units. You can’t serve God and serve money.” 

Jung said he’s staying neutral on the matter of tax credits and affordable housing. 

“I have no jurisdiction or influence or desire to get involved in that issue,” he said. “I evaluate on too tall, too dense, too smelly, too bright, based on land use adjacency issues. Who’s going to live there isn’t my focus.”

Buck and the neighborhood association leaders have gathered 1,600 signed petitions voicing similar concerns about the height, along with apprehension about traffic, parking, and flooding. 

Ojala has filed a traffic impact analysis. The ingress and egress to the new development would be on Garland Road, which is a major arterial and a state highway. 

“Traffic volumes are really not an issue although it’s sometimes hard to convince neighbors of that,” Jung said. “Adding cars decreases speed; it doesn’t increase. The leading cause of speed is thoroughfares that have a serious overcapacity. A six-lane road with no cars on it is an invitation to drag race.” 

Until recently, the city required 1.25 parking spaces per unit for affordable housing but recently reduced that figure to 0.5 spaces per unit. 

“I was a vigorous opponent of that,” Jung said. “I told Ojala that regardless of what the city did overall with parking requirements for affordable housing, this one was going to be parked at 1.25 or I wasn’t going to support it. I got no pushback from that. I’m comfortable there will be adequate parking.”

The plan commissioner acknowledged that flooding is often a concern among residents in zoning cases. 

“The City of Dallas has not done a great job with stormwater management,” Jung said. “We tend to get rain in Dallas in lumps. When it rains, it rains heavily. It would overwhelm the storm sewers until it drains out and subsides. They have to detain enough water and let it flow out at a measured rate until the storm event subsides. It is not going to be a permanent lake or pond. It will drain out. Ojala will not be able to get a permit until they convince the city that they will do what it takes to keep the volume and velocity at what it would naturally be. That is going to require them to have a detention basin at the lower end of that site. They will have to grade the site and divert the water in such a way that it doesn’t flow into the alley.”

What’s Next

Residents, developers, and elected officials have made it clear this matter is important to them. Since the community meeting covered by CandysDirt.com in April:

• Commissioner Jung has met with neighbors on Yorkmont Circle, the street with properties closest to the Shoreline property.
• Four Lochwood neighbors met with Councilwoman Blackmon, Commissioner Jung and staff at City Hall. 
• The Garland Road Vision Steer Committee formed a task force of representatives from area neighborhood associations to review the proposed development and determine what is and is not compliant with the GRV Study/Plan. That is still in review.
• City Housing had two town hall meetings to educate the public on their Public Facilities Corporation that would assist in subsidizing this particular development. 
• Commissioner Jung hosted a town hall meeting to discuss the Shoreline rezone from the Plan Commission/zoning stance.

The City of Dallas requires a certain setback related to height, Jung explained. A 60-foot building must be constructed 180 feet away from the nearest residential property line. 

“From the day [Ojala representatives] contacted me about the case, my first thought was, how are you going to deal with the neighborhood to the side of it?” Jung said. “They’d already thought of that. The criteria are subjective. Do I think that the proposed height with all the other things they’ve proposed to do will be intrusive and burdensome on the neighborhood? I’m weighing all the evidence. I’m in discussion with them about things like the species of trees and the detention pond. It’s still being tweaked.”

Dallas has had a residential proximity slope policy since 1965. The current restrictions, which Jung helped draft, became effective in 1989.  

The height issue in the Lochwood case is primarily dominated by residents who don’t want their view obstructed and don’t want residents in the apartment complex looking into their homes or backyards, Jung said. 

“Why this site is such an issue is it slopes about 35 feet from the front of the site to the far back corner,” he said. “However tall the building is, it’s that number plus 35 feet in terms of how it appears.”

Jung said he anticipates a large number of speakers at the public hearing — both in-person and virtually — and there’s a possibility the case may not be decided the first time it comes up for a hearing. 

A project of this magnitude could take about a year and a half to build after a rezoning is approved, he said.